Centering Prayer and Breathing Exercises for Uncertain Times

Our encounters of mortality are what I refer to as a boot camp for the soul. 

If you are struggling with your own or someone else's mortality, there are things to do to recharge your stamina and resiliency in facing grief and fear.

Centering Prayer:

Centering Prayer (also called Prayer of the Heart) is the prayer first described in the spiritual classic, "The Cloud of Unknowing".
Centering Prayer is thought to be based on one of the contemplative prayer forms St. John of the Cross describes as “the practice of loving attentiveness”.

Research has been conducted on Centering Prayer. (Article: "Centering prayer for women receiving chemotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer: A pilot study". Oncology Nursing Forum 36 (4)) This one-year Centering Prayer study conducted by the Mind Body Medicine Research Group studied prayer practitioners, along with other spiritual practitioners, for the Spiritual Engagement Project, a research study on how engagement in spiritual practices and community influences health and well-being.  Participants completed the myriad tasks for this project, including online questionnaires, two eight-day periods of daily telephone surveys, forms and emails. The findings indicate that it may be helpful for those receiving chemotherapy, and that it may help people experience a more collaborative relationship with God, as well as reduced stress.

This prayer form is a meditation technique which works primarily with the repetition of a sacred word or formula.
Centering Prayer is a silent, non-conceptual form prayer and therefore different from conventional spoken prayers such as the Lord’s Prayer or mentally repeated prayers. The practice of centering prayer seeks to still the activity of the mind in order to experience a loving awareness of God’s presence.
Centering Prayer takes shape in four very simple steps.

1. Choose a sacred word or phrase such as Abba, Jesus, Shalom or Love.

1. Sit comfortably with good supported posture and with eyes closed begin repeating the chosen sacred word.

1. When ever other thoughts arise, do not fret, just keep coming back to the sacred word.

1. At the end of your prayer, remain in silence for a while, observing your breathing.

Possible sacred words or phrases for Centering Prayer are: 

• Jesus

• Christos

• Father

• Mother 

• Abba

• God

• Love

• Peace

• Mercy

• Yes

You can make this your own, based on you unique beliefs and convictions.

The singular word is very helpful for making a simple assertion. When I was having my "Whole World Melt Down" in 2008, I began to use the word "peace" and I still use it today. It has borne fruit in my life that I now see today.

Try the Centering Prayer when you are ready. It will be there for you when it is the right time.
Breathing Exercises:

Breathing Exercises also are beneficial for stress reduction and centering. 
 (If you have any medical history with complications of breathing – consult a physician first.)

This particular technique is from the discipline of Tai Chi. I have mentioned it before, it bears repeating.

Sit with both feet firmly planted on the ground and in an upright and alert position that is comfortable.

Take 3 short inhales.

Let go of 1 long exhale.

Repeat this sequence five times.

This pattern brings what is typically an involuntary bodily process (breathing) and makes it an intentional process, thereby bringing awareness to your core self and assisting you with grounding and offering stability. Breathing gets at the sympathetic nervous system, which is the system that can become aggrivated and cause panic attacks and anxiety related disorders.There are many breathing exercises to try, this one is a place to begin.

Be well.

Love,
Kim

Grounding Yourself Throughout the Impermanence of Life and Death

One of the subjects that I cycle back to repeatedly is that of impermanence. 

It is this reality that, though neglected and resisted, will provide understanding, clarity and insight.

Grief can make you feel like you are in a tipping boat, can you trust the process?

But, then, the "boat" may feel very tippy. I do not want to introduce more turbulent, disorientating, depressing or confusing feelings on top of what you are already experiencing. So, where is the stability? Where is the anchor? How can we ground ourselves?

There is a place for ritual and intentional imagination that provides a predictable, meaningful, mood stabilizing, brain building, and above all - centering - result.

Rituals for Grief

WHY USE RITUAL?

A number of studies indicate that the brain finds predictability comforting and is averse to the new, creative, and unpredictable. It appears that if we can't have the familiarity and predictability we crave, we can create it ourselves, thanks to rituals.

Rituals can be complex or simple. Since we are discussing ritual for grieving people, my suggestion is to have simple rituals that contain you and do not require much from you.

Here are some suggested beginning rituals for the grieving:

Grief can be made calm by focusing for a while on a small object of hope.

Daily Observation - Spend three to five minutes doing slow, focused and careful observation of your surroundings.  If you can chose a lovely and/or complex environment, that is all the better to immerse yourself in.

Grief can be calmed by a ritual of nurture.

Daily Tea - Prepare, with intention, a cup of herbal tea. Do this slowly. Select a cup with intention, touch the cup and feel it's surface. Select tea and take great care and attention in preparing the tea (even if it is in a tea bag)... smell the odor of the dry tea. Listen to the sound of the water as it pours into the kettle or pot, place your hand 10 inches from the heat source and feel the heat building (careful not to get too close!). Do not do anything but wait and listen and watch as the water slowly gets to a boiling point. Watch the steam. You get the general idea - it is to make tea for yourself as a very slow and intentional act of nurture and being fully present to the process.

Grief can be addressed by ritual and meaning.

Thankful Ritual - Gather together a couple symbols that represent an ending - such as rings, photos, keys, glasses - anything of your choosing that is symbolic. Hold each item in your hand and note its significance to your wisdom. Say something of gratitude for all the lessons you have learned. Wrap all these remembrances of things past in a cloth together. Keep this wrapped package in a prominent place as an affirmation of wisdom and protection of your emerging self. Whenever you view the wrapped cloth parcel, thank the items again. Keep the parcel out as long as you desire.

Imagination for Grief

WHY USE IMAGINATION?

Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, a scientist at the National Institute of Health, studied the brain. He used the piano as an interface to measure human brain activity.

Having people practice five finger piano exercises, he found that the brain's motor maps of the hand more than tripled for those who did goal oriented practice on the piano.

Those who spent the same time just hitting keys randomly with no structure showed little or no brain effects.

The most surprising effect - a third group who practiced five finger piano exercises by imagination.

"They . . . rehearse mentally -- not manually -- while looking at the key board. After five days the brains of these people were identical to those who had manually practiced . . .

The same cell networks involved in executing a task are also involved in imagining it."

Here are some suggested intentional imagination exercises for the grieving: 

Grief can be made manageable by the power of imagination.

Special Surroundings - Select a favorite place. It could be a garden, a waterfall, a room, or anything else. A place where you feel content and safe. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in that favorite place. Walk around slowly and notice the colors and textures around you. Focus on sight, feeling, hearing and smelling. Spend some time exploring each of your senses. And notice how good and relaxed you feel. When you are ready, gently open your eyes and come back to the present moment.

Grief can be soothed by relishing memories.

 

A Moment Together - Recall a very happy moment you shared with the departed. Do not allow anything to rob you of the sheer pleasure of this memory. Close your eyes and imagine yourself with them and recall all that transpired. Notice the sounds, sights, colors and textures around you. Spend some time exploring each of your senses as you recall what happened and if you forget how something transpired - do not worry. This is about nurturing your memory and more will come back to you the more you pause to exercise your memories. When you are ready, gently open your eyes and come back to the present moment.

Address Stress - Imagine an object, sound or color that represents stress to you. For example, you may choose to imagine the color red, or a rope with knots or a loud startling noise. When you select your image, sound or color, then you take a deep belly breath and hold it for 1 count and then slowly release the breath out of your mouth. Imagine your image slowly transforming into something calming. The color red can slowly fade into a nice soft and gentle color pink. The rope with knots can slowly transform into a smooth and soft silk or velvet fabric. And the loud noise can gradually transform into a soothing sound of ocean waves. Let your muscles relax. If the stress reforms, do not be distressed by the suborn nature of stress but notice it and repeat the above. When you are ready, gently open your eyes and come back to the present moment. If you continue this practice you will eventually have more calm states available to you.

These tried and true techniques may assist you if balancing yourself with the impermance you encounter.

 

Love,

Kim

New Programs in the Los Angeles Area

I am negotiating upcoming expressive arts workshops for grieving people at Adult Bereavement Group at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and The Cancer Support Community in the Los Angeles area. Stay tuned!
Love,
Kim

Question

Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Love, Kim

The Contagious Visual Expression of Mourning

There may never have been a time in western history that had such an expression of grief and mourning as the Victorian period. And no person that had such a singular impact on the visual and cultural expression of mourning as Queen Victoria.

It is such a striking impact never seen before or since in recorded Western history. I was lead to ask: why did this woman at this moment have so much influence on the culture and the appearance of grief?

My study of the queen has led me to a few conclusions that I would like to posit. I am not an expert on Victoria or British history, but my study yielded impressions that I am willing to share and explore with you.

I will first explain why I think Victoria had such great cultural influence and then look at precursor events in Victoria's life that shaded and contoured her approach to grief, discuss the grief she demonstrated for over 40 years and then draw some conclusions. In this way, the examination will not be a chronological or linear treatment of her life, but a circular one that aims to explain her impact on the mourning culture of the western world.

Queen Victoria's Wedding

I think this is the place to begin with Victoria's influence on a grief culture. Certainly her intense love and affection for Prince Albert opened the door to her pain upon separation by death. Further, and more it the point of this query, her marriage ceremony to Prince Albert was paradigm-shifting for the culture of her time, thus setting the stage for her sphere of influence.

Up until this time, weddings among the ruling class were often in the early evening, small (close family members) with the bride and groom wearing their best clothing – no new garments were acquired. This meant that often brides wore black, crimson, blue – but not white. White was sometimes, in fact, thought of a funeral color in that time period.

Victoria, perhaps inspired by her new-found love, imagined something totally unseen and unknown by her contemporaries. She planned and produced an afternoon wedding that had pageantry and procession, was large in scale and attendance - and – she wore a white gown specifically made for the occasion. Such passion, spectacle and innovation, as witnessed by the upper class who attended the festive wedding, must have captured people's imagination. Thus it came to be that Victoria became every young woman's role model for the dream of romantic love and marriage (and every mother's standard for showing how cultivated and refined their family was.)

I suspect that this innovative wedding deeply imprinted on the cultural psyche and set the stage for people to think of Victoria as the person to watch for trends in a way that no other royal had achieved. Perhaps the influence she created continued to take the culture with her into her deepest grief, which lasted over 40 years.

Precursors to Understand Victoria's Approach to Grief

There were two early influences on Victoria that stood out to me as causal. One - Victoria's father died when she was 8 months old. Though she was too young to comprehend the loss, I would anticipate that this could have shaped her home life and psyche in a powerful way. Two - Victoria's mother was very controlling. Victoria was watched 24 hours a day and never allowed to be alone. She was even forced to sleep in her mother’s room. Though Victoria did not like this, it may have caused her to learn how to be independent of mind whilst habituated to having constant companionship.

Victoria finally became liberated and happy when she married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. They bore 9 children together. She was adoring of Albert, they were constantly in connection, the precedent of constant companionship having been set by her mother, but now happily realized with Albert. She went, in a flash, from a miserable childhood to an ecstatic young adulthood.

A Grief to Influence all Grief

At forty-two years of age, Victoria’s young husband quickly contracted and died of typhoid fever. Victoria's mother had died just months before Albert.

She wrote to her daughter Victoria: "How I, who leant on him for all and everything—without whom I did nothing, moved not a finger, arranged not a print or photograph, didn't put on a gown or bonnet if he didn't approve it shall go on, to live, to move, to help myself in difficult moments?" This is a telling statement – the woman who had never been alone, who had found a simpatico partner to enjoy constant companionship with – was now, for the first time - very, very alone.

The Queen turned her grief and mourning into the sole focus of her existence for three years. She immediately donned black and dressed her entire court that way. Albert's rooms were maintained exactly as when he was alive. Servants were to continue all tasks related to the Prince without interruption as if he were alive. She had statues made of him, displayed mementos of his around the royal palaces, and she spent most of her time secluded in Windsor Castle or in Scotland where she had enjoyed happy times with Albert.

After the first year, her mourning came to be viewed as obsessive, and was aggravated by Victoria's refusal to appear in public except on the rarest occasions. But, society was watching. And taking their queues from Victoria. They may not have seen much of her, but what they did see became quickly assimilated into the community.

Intricate traditions were quickly established. A widow was to remain in mourning for over two years. Full mourning, a period of a year and one day, was represented with dull black clothing similar to Victoria's. A woman who was in mourning was not allowed to exit her home with the exception of attending church services. Isolation, similar to Victoria's, became the standard.

Mourning attire became a way to show the wealth and respectability of a woman. Like the Queen, some went so far as to dress their servants for mourning. Middle and lower class women would struggle to keep pace by dying dresses black and then bleaching them out again. An industry of mourning was invented by tailors who are thought to have started rumors concerning the bad luck of recycling funeral attire.
The color black best represented the Victorian act of mourning. Victoria dressed in black an the world seemed to follow. Some have posited that black, for the Victorian, symbolizes the absence of light and life. It certainly served as an instantly recognizable sign that a loved one had died.

In 1901, with the death of Queen Victoria, England seemed to rise out of mourning with her passing. Women were no longer dictated to follow the strict Victorian code of visual and behavioral etiquette. However, many of the conventions survive, even to this day.

In America, the change in mourning had been forced before Victoria’s death. The Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, left approximately 618,000 dead. Twice as many Southern soldiers died than Northern and practically the whole population of the South was in mourning. So many women were dressed in black that the governor of Mississippi tried to pass a law banning Victorian mourning garb because of the low morale of the people.

My sense of Victoria is that she projected her great, epic love into her environment with such visual and cultural innovation that she captivated a society that watched her and followed her all the way into her great, epic grief.

Perhaps no singular person has ever changed the interface of visuals and grief to the extent that Queen Victoria did.

Love,
Kim

Today's Reflections

Link to a beautiful rendition...

Dust in the Wind...

I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity

Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind

Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground
Though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Ohh...

Now don't hang on
Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind (All we are is dust in the wind)
Dust in the wind (Everything is dust in the wind)
Everything is dust in the wind.

Today's Reflections

A woman

who lives longer than her husband

is called a widow,

a man without his wife

a widower.

A child

without parents

is an orphan.

But what do you call the father and mother of a child who has died?



This is a part of our work at Alive and Mortal. Creating words and phrases in community as an act of advocacy. Join us....

Today's Reflections

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations.

All wise men got puzzled by King's request. One answer for all question? Something that works everywhere, in every situation? In every joy, every sorrow, every defeat and every victory?

They thought and thought. After a lengthy discussion, an old man suggested something which appeal to all of them. They went to king and gave him something written on paper. But the condition was that king was not to see it - only in extreme danger, when the King finds himself alone and there seems to be no way, only then he can see it. The King put the papers under his diamond ring.

After a few days, enemy neighbors attacked the Kingdom. The King and his army fought bravely but lost the battle. King had to flee on his horse. His horse took him far away in Jungle. He could hear many troops of horses were following him and the noise was coming closer and closer. Suddenly the King found himself standing in the end of the road. Underneath there was a rocky valley thousand feet deep. If he jumped, he would be finished. King became restless. There seemed to be no way.

Then suddenly he saw the diamond in his ring shining in the sun, and he remembered the message hidden in the ring. He opened the diamond and read the message. The message was very small but very great.

The message was - " This too will pass."

The King read it. Again read it. Suddenly he understood - Yes! Only a few days ago, I was enjoying my kingdom. I was the mightiest of all the Kings. Yet today, the Kingdom and all pleasure have gone. I am here trying to escape from enemies. However when those days of luxuries have gone, this day of danger too will pass. A calm come on his face. He kept standing there. The place where he was standing was full of natural beauty. He had never known that such a beautiful place was also a part of his Kingdom. The revelation of message had a great effect on him. He relaxed and forget about those following him. After a few minute he realized that the noise of the horses and the enemy coming was receding. They moved into some other part of the mountains and were not on that path.

The King was very brave. He reorganized his army and fought again. He defeated the enemy and regain his lost empire. When he returned to his empire after victory, he was received with much fan fare at the door. The whole capital was rejoicing in the victory. Everyone was in a festive mood. Flowers were being thrown on King from every house, from every corner. People were dancing and singing. For a moment King said to himself,"I am one of the bravest and greatest King. It is not easy to defeat me." With all the reception and celebration an ego emerged in him.

Suddenly the Diamond of his ring flashed in the sunlight and reminded him of the message. He open it and read it again: "This too will pass."

And, he became silent.

Today's Reflections

Mourn Not

The Barren Fields

Nor Open Green

That Sits Silent

Today's Reflections

Some days

I buckle under the weight

of all the dark forces

that hold dominion

on the widow and orphan.


Some days

I feel the downward vortex

of the stillborn one

and the empty bassinet.

Aching for a way-shower.

A guide to show me how to get

OUT.


And then

I rise.

Somehow.

I honestly cannot tell you how.

It rises within like a surge of firey pain

that cries out to love life

and be fruitful.



On Tuesday

I told the woman that my favorite word was

"nevertheless".


Love,

Today's Reflections

Image Credit: Art & Archeology Dot Com


Psychopomps:

(from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός (psychopompos), literally meaning the "guide of souls")

are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions

whose responsibility is to escort newly-deceased souls to the afterlife.

Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage.

Frequently depicted on funerary art,

psychopomps have been associated at different times and in different cultures with:

horses, whip-poor-wills, ravens, dogs, crows, owls, sparrows, cuckoos, harts and yamatoots.

(Credit: Google)